


Life After Love

by ProspertheXVIII



Category: The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:19:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9962777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProspertheXVIII/pseuds/ProspertheXVIII
Summary: "I can't sincerely say that I loved him. And we were different - I was far too old for him. I could never have been what he wanted, even if I'd tried harder. We had different interests, we wanted different things from one another...it was doomed from the beginning. It just happened to be cut short before I could end it the way I wanted to..."Three years may have passed since the loss of her fiance, but occasional heartache still strikes Bernadette. Fortunately, she didn't have to face it alone.





	

"Shit..." The word seemed more an exhalation than a statement, Bernadette standing up and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear; shifting uneasily from one high-heeled foot to the other as she watched her breath billow out in a cloud in front of her. In spite of having spent the better part of thirty years of her life in Australia, the notion of winter in July still fucked with her majorly. The weather was currently shifting at regular intervals between dreary and overcast to pissing rain, with the occasional cold snap to provide a little variety. This was one of those days; the grass beneath her feet crisp and the air still, but bitingly cold - her nose red, and face numb. She let out a sigh, biting her lip as she stuffed her gloved hands into her pockets, regarding the grave in front of her with a grimace on her face. At this point, this practice felt more like a token gesture than anything else, but it had become habit after three years. The gold inscription on the headstone was beginning to tarnish a little at this point - maybe if she bothered to visit more than twice a year - the day on which he was born, and the one on which he died - then it would be in a better state. She sucked her teeth, still uneasily fidgeting.

 

She felt as though she ought to do something more - speak to him or something. But even in life, the majority of her attempts at conversing with him involved him half-arsedly pretending to listen to her, a 'that's nice, dear' following to thinly reaffirm that he had allegedly been paying attention. What was the point? The best conversations she'd had with him were always when they fucked - and fucking was the perfect way to describe it. Lovemaking was entirely the wrong term, for there was very little love involved usually. Did she enjoy it? Not exactly, no. He'd been too young for her - she knew this now more than ever, but at the time it had been glaringly obvious too. Their needs and desires had never matched up; he'd wanted raucous sex - of an ilk which she wouldn't even have been able to cope with had she been ten, or even twenty years younger, - and the sort of unique eye candy which she was to him; she love and attention. At her age, it was more than enough to simply have a hand to reach out for in the darkness; a warm body by her side to ward away the loneliness. 

 

Her eyes were beginning to tear up; tears of God-knows-what. Guilt, probably. She felt terrible for how it had happened - though in fairness, he was a grown man. She dyed her own hair for christ's sake, banishing her rapidly-increasing greys each month; it didn't generally require adult supervision. Idiotic little shit. But at the same time, she felt a degree of guilt for rebounding so quickly; for finding another when the poor bastard was barely cold in his grave. Well, it wasn't as if he was to know. Maybe it was just the sadness of the setting; she wasn't sure. But she felt crappy, whatever it had to do with. She wiped her eyes with a hand, great care being taken to keep her mascara in place. The pink roses she'd placed on the frostbitten ground simply looked out of place among the dying tributes scattered around the unkempt grave - garish. But then again the loud and garish had always been what he'd had a flair for while he'd still been alive, so maybe he'd appreciate it. 'Joshua Williams, 11.12.1978-08.06.1994' - a tiny motif of a trumpet emblazoned next to his name. Funny how his entire life fit inside that one dash. Twenty-five years meandering around the planet, being the hedonistic airhead that he was, and destroying what few brain cells he'd been graced with at birth with booze, fags, and the occasional line or two of coke. All reduced to around a centimetre. 

 

She felt a warm presence behind her; Bob reaching for her hand and squeezing it as he placed a light kiss on her cheekbone. "You're lost in thought, love. What's up?"

"Nothing much." She dabbed at her eyes again, taking one last look before stepping back a little. She turned to him a little, her expression melancholy as she wrung her hands. "I...I'm beginning to realise that I don't really miss him. Is that bad?" Bob gave a thin-lipped smile, shaking his head. 

"It's been a while, Bernie - you can't spend the rest of your life hung up on someone who's not here anymore. You had some good times, you mourn for a while, then you let things go and live your life. Que sera sera or whatever." She grimaced a little, taking his hand. "Are you alright?"

"If I'm not now, then I will be. I just don't like to think about it much," she sighed. "I'm ready to go now." He pursed his lips; taking off his hat for a moment and giving a small nod of respect to the grave. Bernadette wore a ghost of a smile on her face, once again shifting a whisp of hair from her line of vision; taking one last look before turning and walking away without another glance. 

 

"Did you love him?" He waited until they were out of sight of the churchyard, until then walking solemnly with his head down a little; Bernadette much the same, hands jammed in her pockets to fight against the cold.  He put a comforting arm around her waist, allowing her to rest her head on his  shoulder. 

"...Not really, no." She said after a small pause for thought. "I loved the idea of him - I loved having somebody. But...not the reality of him." She stopped again, chewing her lip. "I wish I could say differently. He deserved better."

"What do you mean?" He looked at her quizzically. 

"I mean he shouldn't have wasted so many of his halcyon days on me. He deserved somebody his own age, who loved him sincerely - and I shouldn't have stayed. I wish I hadn't." She stopped, taking a moment to smooth her skirt and fuss in that way that she so often did, fidgeting to distract from an uncomfortable conversation. "He was a friend of Tick's," she explained. "Well, more a friend-of-a-friend." She paused for thought again, chewing at her lip. "It was all a sycophantic ploy to get to me, which is equal parts endearing and creepy. He...well, he didn't care for much else besides what I am. And that's...more than a touch demeaning. To fight so hard to prove I'm not just a man in a dress, only to end up with somebody who really only saw me as just that...for that alone, I can't sincerely say that I loved him. And we were different - I was far too old for him. I could never be what he wanted, even if I'd tried harder. We had different interests, we wanted different things from one another...it was doomed from the beginning. It just happened to be cut short before I could end it the way I wanted to." She sighed, shaking her head a little. "I wasted two and a half years on the fucking twit."

 

It would have been acceptable, had she been younger. True, when her hair has still been naturally fair, and her performances in a night not limited to one twee, mostly static lipsynch of a song older than most of the people in the room, followed by occasional verbal sparring match with the audience, and an even more occasional beer can or cocktail glass lobbed at her from the bar, she had bedded more chasers and lunatics than she could count on both hands. But a long-term relationship, the better parts of which were comprised of cheap wine and drunk sex that she was growing too old to handle, with a man who'd have been nothing but one-night stand material back in her heyday - before she'd gotten middle-aged and desperate - when he was less than half her age? What the hell had she been thinking? 

"It's too late now to change anything," Bob observed as though he had read her mind. "It was what it was, and now it's done. Hell, you think I enjoyed my seven years trapped in the middle of nowhere with no one but fuckin' Cynthia for company?" He chuckled; a deep, infectious belly laugh which got Bernadette giggling a little too. "I'm still surprised I didn't plug a bullet in myself."

"And I'm surprised that I'm not dead of AIDS." She huffed a sigh; not quite a laugh. "Somebody should've told my twenty-something year old self that spending every working night being arse-fucked in a dreadful hotel room by every Tom, Dick, and Harry that looked my way wasn't the best plan to go about finding love." She sighed again, Bob reaching for her hand. "I wish that I'd found this sooner. I wish I hadn't wasted my life on nobodies..." 

Bob shook his head; pulling her closer and letting her lean on his shoulder. "It only means so much because we found each other so late in the day. Say what you will, I think this is a perfect way to live out the latter half of your life." She was now smiling broadly, one arm around his shoulder as she cuddled into him with her legs folded. "I could never regret a thing, love. Not when we have what we do now."

 

She recalled something in that moment; of her early days as Tick's drag mentor. She had guided him through the 'class' approach to the whole thing; teaching him the I've Never Been to Me routine which Adam had now claimed as his own after Tick took the younger queen under his wing; showing him how to achieve all the nuances and subtleties of femininity; imparted all knowledge of the brand of drag which she'd learned with Les Girls unto him...and what had his first solo number been, but half-naked in black leatherette and a dreadful curled wig; lipsynching that stupid fucking Cher song; parodying her lip moments as the plastic songstress moaned and gurgled about life after love. She'd at the time had no idea what had possessed him to choose that as his introduction to the world - Marion probably, she guessed now. Ever since, she'd bloody hated the song - it had made no sense to her. 

 

However, living her life as she now did - living after her first 'love' had crashed and burned; after all the shit; pushing on in spite of the constant tribulations of her life, and finding something better...To a degree, she now knew what the stupid woman had meant. She had never even dreamed that her life could be so glorious. 

**Author's Note:**

> Another exploration of Bernadette and her past, plus some fluff at the end. Her previous relationship is so interesting to write about seeing as so little about it is ever discussed - most of my basis for this is this conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX7p9tWMcaU 
> 
> The whole thing honestly makes me rather sad, when I think about it. I utterly adore Bernadette, and there are moments in the film where she'll say or do things in passing that are genuinely heartbreaking when you think about them (the above scene, Trumpet's funeral, her reaction to Bob referring to the three of them as 'you blokes', she and Tick's conversation about children...the list goes on) but it does make for some damned good writing inspiration.


End file.
